The first I have heard of a formal ceremony for Outfit members....

Tapes reveal mob's secrets
June 7, 2006

BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter

In secretly tape-recorded conversations, alleged mob hitman Frank Calabrese Sr. talks about having his finger cut for a mob oath, spreading lime to dispose of a corpse and how shotgun ammo tore up the body of another victim, according to newly released transcripts.

"Them will f------ tear half your body apart," Calabrese Sr. allegedly said in a 1999 conversation secretly tape-recorded by his son.

Transcripts of the conversations came to light Tuesday as prosecutors filed a motion to keep the 69-year-old Calabrese Sr. behind bars as he awaits charges with other reputed mobsters in one of the most significant cases ever against the Chicago Outfit. Calabrese Sr.'s attorney, Joseph Lopez, wants Calabrese Sr. out of jail, saying he presents no risk. Lopez likely will argue in front of a federal judge next week that the recorded conversations are taken out of context.

Calabrese Sr. is charged with killing 13 people for the mob. The feds say he's a danger to the community, especially for the witnesses against him, which include his brother, Nick, who allegedly participated in some of the killings with him, and his son, Frank Jr., who sources said no longer has anything to do with the Outfit.

Nick Calabrese was spurred in part to cooperate with the feds after he learned that his brother had been secretly tape-recorded allegedly giving the go-ahead to have him killed if he cooperated with the feds.

Frank Calabrese Sr. said he "would send my blessing" to Outfit members, so they would know there would be no retaliation for Nick Calabrese's death, according to the transcripts.

Frank Calabrese Jr., who is not charged in the current case involving his father, put his life on the line by secretly recording the elder Calabrese in the prison yard where they both were, on another case in 1999. Frank Calabrese Jr. wore earphones and a tape-player which the FBI secretly equipped with a bug. The younger Calabrese apparently decided to cooperate to ensure his father remained in prison for the rest of his life because the son received nothing from the government for his help, law enforcement sources have said.

On the tapes, Calabrese Sr. allegedly talks of participating in several killings.

Frank Calabrese Sr. "has been a serial murderer for the Chicago Outfit," stated the government filing by prosecutors Mitchell A. Mars, John J. Scully and T. Markus Funk.

The 'Dahmer of Elmwood Park'?


Lopez scoffed at the prosecution line.

"That's the most ridiculous characterization I've ever heard of my client," Lopez said.

"Is he the Jeffrey Dahmer of Elmwood Park?" Lopez said.

Referring to one murder, the 1970 slaying of mob associate Michael Albergo, Calabrese Sr. talks to his son about putting lime on the body to help it disintegrate, the transcripts say.

"We put lime that eats," Calabrese Sr. allegedly said. "There was no clothes on the person."

The feds contend Calabrese Sr. worried that Albergo could implicate him in loan-sharking, and lured him to the murder site where Calabrese Sr. and two other men strangled him to death. Albergo was stripped, then buried in a Chinatown construction site, which later became a White Sox parking lot.

In another conversation, Calabrese Sr. allegedly admits to being in the lookout car during the murders of William Dauber and Dauber's wife, Charlotte.

The couple was killed in 1980 because mobsters believed that William Dauber was cooperating with law enforcement, authorities said. His wife was killed simply because she was at the "wrong place at the wrong time," Calabrese Sr. allegedly said on tape.

Another man in the wrong place at the wrong time was Arthur Morawski, who was murdered along with Richard Ortiz in 1983 outside a bar in Cicero, officials said. The feds contend Ortiz was killed by Calabrese Sr. and other mobsters because Ortiz had committed a murder not sanctioned by the Outfit. Ortiz's family has long argued he was never involved in any crimes.

Allegedly talks of mob induction


Calabrese Sr. allegedly describes how he blocked Ortiz's car while his brother Nick and another accomplice fired shotguns at Ortiz and Morawski.

Calabrese Sr. describes how he instructed the two killers to do the job and how the ammunition tore up the bodies of the victims, according to the transcripts.

"Oh, yeah," Calabrese Sr. said. "Tore 'em up bad. Them'll tear your body up. They're called double-oughts. And you want me to tell you something? The Polish guy that was with him was a nice guy. Okay? But he happened to be at the wrong place. . . . It was said, no matter who's with him, want it done. Now if you back away and you have that opportunity and you don't, then you look like a f------ a------."

By allegedly talking about the murders, Calabrese Sr. violated a strict Outfit code of never speaking of killings after they were done.

In another violation of the code, Calabrese Sr. allegedly describes how he was inducted into the mob.

"Their fingers get cut and everybody puts the fingers together and all the blood running down, then they take pictures. Put them in your hand. Burn them," Calabrese Sr. says, according to the feds.

"Pictures of?" his son asks.

"Holy pictures," Calabrese Sr. explains.

As they burn, you don't want to move your hand, Calabrese Sr. says.

If you move, "then it shows your fear," he says.


MOB TALK Allegedly talks of mob induction Allegedly talks of mob induction

Here are excerpts from transcripts of secretly recorded statements in 1999 of alleged mob hitman Frank Calabrese Sr.

On urging two reluctant mob assassins to get out of the car to go kill two victims in Cicero in 1983:


"I was the one talkin' to them . . . 'All right, guys, here's what you gotta do here. Okay now out. Out. Out. Get out . . .' [He laughs.] Yeah, they were like hesitant for a minute. 'Out. Now, now, now, now.' "


On what the shotgun ammo did to the bodies of the two men:


"Bigger ones . . . Big, big bearings. So them, them will f------ tear half your body apart. Oh yeah. Tore 'em up bad. Them'll tear your body up. They're called double-oughts."


On his pride of getting his fellow mobsters to talk in code:


"You know who started all that rigga-ma-talk-talk? I did. They never talked like that. They didn't know about talkin' like that."